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Current work site: Paikend (Uzbekistan)
Head of expedition: Andrey Omelchenko

Created in 1981, the Expedition operates in close collaboration with the Archaeology Institute, Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences (Samarkand).

The principal excavation site (late 4th c. BC–11th c. AD) is located in Paikend, 60 km southwest of Bukhara.

History of Bukhara by Narshakhi, Traditions of Countries by Istakhri and The Face of the Earth by Ibn Hawqal; the city was a major centre on the trade route leading from Mawarannahr to Khorasan.

Excavations on the site first started in 1914 by L.A. Zimin, representative of the St. Petersburg school of Asian studies and V.V. Bartold’s pupil, with the support of the Turkestan Archaeology Appreciation Club.

In 1939–1940 Paikend was explored by joint efforts of the Hermitage’s Zarafshan Expedition, the Institute of History of Material Culture (Russian Academy of Sciences) and the Uzbekistan Committee for Preservation of Historic and Art Heritage (Supervisor: A.Yu. Yakubovsky; team members: M.M. Dyakonov, V.A. Shishkin, V.N. Kesaev, S.K. Kabanov, etc.). Since 1981, exploration works have been conducted by the Bukhara Expedition.

15% of the site has been unearthed on the upper construction horizons (9th–11th c.).

The excavated areas on the Citadel include the deposits of the late 4th–3rd c. BC (the beginning of life on the site) in the northeast and northwest segment; the 3rd–8th c. fortification structures (walls, towers, the archer gallery and barracks in the southwest of the Citadel); a fire temple (3rd c. BC–7th c. AD) with two shrines, a courtyard and the adjacent “administrative area”; a housing area in the middle sector of the fortress; a mosque; the foundations of a 9th–11th c. minaret; a palace with adjacent 9th–10th c. buildings. Three quarters of the Citadel have been uncovered on the upper horizon. Part of a 5th–10th c. residential community and the city walls in front of the Citadel have been explored.

The excavated areas on Shahristan 1 include the city walls, a 6th–10th c. residential district (90 × 18–20 m) with large households and a mosque; partly the street network and the water supply system composed of wells and water pipes.

On Shahristan 2, the studies have involved the fortification structures with 6th–8th c. towers; the south city gates and the adjacent residential area (130 × 18 m); a street with several 9th–10th c. trade and craft facilities: an iron workshop, a bone carving workshop, a bakery, a tabib’s pharmacy and a stone cauldron repair shop. The water supply system which used to serve the South Suburb has been discovered. The building of a late 8th c. pharmacy has been studied.

In the suburban zone (east), the fully explored areas include Rabat 1 (77 × 77 m; latter half of the 8th–10th c.), part of Rabat 4, and the South Suburb (125 × 20 m) in front of the market square, which initially served as a caravansary with accommodation and storage facilities, stalls, a bathhouse and two mosques; the pottery kilns on the fringe of the district have been studied. The landmark finds include:

– stone tools of hunters and gatherers representing Kelteminar Culture (6th–4th millennium BC) and Zamanbaba Culture (3rd–2nd millennium BC; the first-ever tribes with production economies in the region); Saka (East Scythian) bronze arrowheads (7th–6th c. BC); Early Hellenistic pottery (late 4th–3rd c. BC); silver coins imitating tetradrachms of the Greek-Bactrian king Euthydemus (last centuries BC–3rd c. AD); iron weapons dating from the turn of the era and similar to Sarmatian weapons (including retrievals from the early 8th c. cache: swords, knives, spear and arrowheads, bow fragments, a coat of plates and fragments of a shield); fragments of wall paintings from the fire temple and the “burnt room” (the adoration scene); bullae (stamp impressions in clay) and the stamps made of semi-precious stones; terracotta figurines; part of a clay backgammon board and two hoardes of silver coins (the so-called Bukharkhudat drachms);

– on Shahristan 1, a hoarde of over 4500 copper coins (locally minted); parts of a clay cornice with a stamped painted ornament of palmettoes, grapevine, birds, etc.; a Chinese mirror, Chinese coins and their local imitations; a crossbow bolt; fragments of vessels with Sogdian inscriptions in ink and a potter's wheel;

– on Shahristan 2, a glass vial for rosewater, a set of glass wet cups (alembics); bronze and brass beakers; lamps; a pyxis; dishes for preparing cosmetics (usmajushaki); bronze and silver rings with almandine, turquoise, cornelian and spinel inserts bearing the names of their owners; a whole iron lock; a set of matrices with geometrical, plant and animal ornaments; some glazed pottery with epigraphic ornamentation in austere or flamboyant Kufic script; shards of vessels with Arabic inscriptions in ink, including one of the earliest accurate dates in Middle Asia (30 June 790); carved and painted panels made of clay and gypsum mix from a house on Shahristan 2 and the mihrab of the South Suburb mosque.

The retrievals form the core of the Paikend Site History Museum (founded in 2002), affiliated with the Bukhara State Museum-Reserve of Architecture and Art. The Paikend Museum has grown into a cultural centre with enormous appeal to local and foreign visitors; the Paikend site is in itself an open-air museum attracting many overseas tourists. In view of this, the Expedition performs small restoration and conservation works (e.g. on the foundations of the columns in the ayvan of the fire-temple; the minaret on the Citadel; towers and shops near the south gate of Shahristan 2). The most active contributors to the Bukhara Expedition between the 1980s and the early 2000s have included archaeologists G.L. Semenov (founder and head of the Expedition on the part of the State Hermitage Museum, 1981–2006), D.K. Mirzaakhmedov (since 1981, head of the Expedition on the part of the Archaeology Institute, Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences), I.K. Malkiel (head of the Expedition, 1991), Sh.T. Aldylov, E.F. Vulfert, A.I. Naimark (Head of the Moscow Museum of Oriental Art Unit; worked on the site in 1983–1985), S.N. Makeev, I.O. Babanov, L.N. Sergienko, A.V. Bekhter, A.I. Torgoev (head of the Expedition, 2007–2010), P.B. Lourie, B. Abdullaev, N.D. Sobirov, N.Zh. Saparov, A.N. Gorin, L.O. Smirnova, R.M. Toyirov, A.V. Omelchenko (head of the Expedition on the part of the State Hermitage Museum since 2011); architects L.Yu. Kulakova, S.D. Mirzaakhmedov, A.V. Kulish; restoration experts V.A. Fominykh, A.Yu. Stepanov, E.P. Stepanova, O.L. Semenova, R.A. Kazimirova, O.N. Viktorova, D.O. Kholov; artists I.I. Suikanen, А.Е. Manevsky, S.A. Malkiel.